“Proyecto Dinosaurios”

Opportunities for Enhancing Diversity in the Geosciences

Fieldwork with OEDG

“Proyecto Dinosaurios” also includes a component of fieldwork. This is designed to give participants the opportunity to experience and learn how paleontology is done in the field using appropriate tools and methodology. This includes understanding the local geology, prospecting, GPS data collection and safe recovery of fossils. An important objective is to have the participants work side by side with professional paleontologists and see how fieldwork is done. All the fossil sites will emphasize vertebrate localities from the middle Jurassic through to the Pleistocene. An additional objective is to experience the joy of discovery. The instructors and assistants will coach the participants on what to look for and the best method for discovery, documentation and collection.

Trip 1

The first trip was a short one to the Mojave Desert to look at dinosaur tracks (ichnofossils). This site is important because the only known tracks in California of dinosaurs, therapsids and pterosaurs occur here, in the Middle Jurassic Aztec Sandstone close to the Mojave National Preserve. This opportunity will give the students hands on experience in the field with geologic maps, GPS data collection, and prospecting.

Trip 2

The second excursion visits the fossil-rich vertebrate beds of El Golfo de Santa Clara, along the upper coast of the Sea of Cortez, Sonora, Mexico. This is an early Pleistocene fossil site in the deltaic sediments of the ancestral Colorado River. These fossil sites are important because they help us to piece together some of the climatic changes that may have occurred in North America over the last million years as well as the occurrences of some of the extinct mega-fauna. This region, which is now a desert, was once a tropical landscape and included species such as tapirs, a giant anteater, horses, mammoth, capybara, hyena, giant ground sloth and saber tooth cat.

Trip 3

The third and last expedition took place in San Juan County in southeastern Utah. This area contains fossils dating to the Late Jurassic – Early Cretaceous, including sauropod material from exposures of the Brushy Basin Member of the Late Jurassic Morrison Formation and sauropod, theropod, and ornithopod footprints from the Early Cretaceous Cedar Mountain Formation. The two weeks the students spent here gave them the opportunity to experience different collecting techniques, and to experience the challenges in unearthing and collecting large dinosaur specimens.